Rescue efforts hampered after Sri Lanka’s landslides

Hopes of survivors were fading as rescue efforts have been hampered after heavy rains continued to pound the central Sri Lankan region where villages have been swallowed by mud in several landslides.

Military spokesman, Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera, told reporters in the capital, Colombo, yesterday, that the army was assessing the situation and would deploy more troops in the worst-hit Kegalle district if needed.

“I don’t think there will be any survivors,” Maj.-Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, the officer in charge of the rescue operation, told Reuters.

“There are places where the mud level is up to 30 feet. We will do our best. We will keep going until we can recover the maximum.”

At least 37 people have been killed and nearly 220,000 displaced by landslides, which crashed into at least three villages in Aranayaka, in the central hills of Sri Lanka, following torrential rains.

Jayaweera said that the army had so far rescued 156 people trapped by landslides and more than 1,550 people were being sheltered at seven different sites.

The Disaster Management Centre reported more than 350,000 people were affected by the landslides. About 220 families were reported missing, the Sri Lankan Red Cross said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The task is to figure out what happened to them,” the Red Cross said, noting that some people may have left after local officials warned earlier this week of possible landslides.

A government official, who is part of the rescue efforts told Al Jazeera on Wednesday from Kegalle district, about 72km from Colombo, that one village, Siripura, was buried 12 metres under the mud.

Villagers recalled hearing and seeing the torrents of muddy water, tree branches, and debris crashing down around their homes late on Tuesday.

“I heard a huge sound like a plane crashing into the earth,” AG Kamala, 52, who had just returned to her house in Siripura when the landslides hit the area, told the Associated Press news agency.